Page 17 of Firefly
I stop short near the stairwell, looking around frantically.
Nothing. No black clothes. No long hair. No Hayden. Just students staring at me like I’m crazy.
“Miss Fitzgerald,” Miss Laken calls out. “Are you alright?” she asks.
No. I’m not alright. I haven’t been in three years.
“Uh, yes, ma’am,” I say, and she folds her arms across her chest.
“Well, get to class dear,” she says, and I nod.
“Yes, Miss Laken,” I answer, then walk back down the hall, and Brayden shoves my books into my chest.
“I don’t know what is up with you lately, but you need to get a grip,” he whisper-shouts then walks away.
Fuck him, and fuck this goddamn school.
The rest of the day drags and I think I’m paranoid because I’ve gotten the feeling all goddamn day like someone is following me and eyes are beaming into the back of my skull. Every time I turn around, I expect to see him standing there but he never is.
By the time I get home, my nerves are shredded raw.
I practically run upstairs toward my bedroom, terrified and desperate all at once.
The second I open the door, my stomach drops.
Another note sits neatly on my pillow.
Fresh tears burn my eyes immediately.
With shaking hands, I pick it up.
“You still look at me like I hung the moon, Firefly.”
A sob escapes me because nobody knew that.
Nobody.
Hayden used to tease me constantly because he’d catch me staring at him like he was something holy.
My knees give out and I collapse onto the bed clutching the note to my chest while grief tears through me all over again.
“Please stop,” I cry into the empty room. “Please don’t do this to me.” But no answer comes.
Only silence. And somehow… that silence feels alive.
Thursday night bleeds into Friday like a bruise I can’t stop pressing on. I barely sleep after finding that note on my pillow. Those six words haunt me all night long. Because dead boys don’t sneak into bedrooms. Dead boys don’t smell like leather and smoke… and memories I’ve spent three years trying to bury alive. And they definitely don’t still own every shattered piece of my heart.
But Hayden does. I know he does.
By morning, I’m exhausted.
My thoughts are tangled and messy—impossible to silence. Every hallway at school feels wrong, and every dark corner makes my pulse jump stupidly fast hoping I’ll see green eyes and a crooked smirk waiting for me. But he never appears… and somehow that hurts worse.
By the time Friday evening arrives, anxiety sits heavy beneath my skin like a storm waiting to split open.
Which means dinner with the founding families.
My personal version of hell.
